Do you know the value of your CRM?

In 1989, a small-time collector was perusing art at a flea market. He ended up buying an uninspired pastoral painting, purely for the frame.

When he got it home, he removed the painting. He had no intention of keeping it. To his dismay, he discovered the frame was cheaply made and not salvageable.

But he found something else inside. Folded behind the painting was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. He could tell it was old, but he didn’t think it valuable. Then a friend urged him to research it.

As it turned out, the hidden copy was one of only 24 first prints of the historic document. In June of 2000, it sold at Sotheby’s for $8.1 million.

Hidden Value

If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find a slew of similar stories.

The original Velvet Underground demo someone bought for 75¢. The 11th-century Chinese pottery bought for three bucks and later sold for $2.2 million. The Warhol sketch purchased for $5 that turned out to be worth an estimated $2 million.

Sometimes there’s immeasurable value right under our noses, but we don’t see it. For many small business leaders, that’s true of their CRM solution. If you think of your CRM as little more than an elaborate database, you could be one of them.

How Your CRM Can Be A Game-Changer

A CRM (short for “customer relationship management”) solution is a powerful, robust tool—if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, we’ve worked with plenty of SMB owners who are barely scratching the surface.

Below is a quick list of some of the powerful things your CRM can do that you might not know about.

Streamline the sales process.

The goal in sales is to convert leads to prospects and prospects to customers. A CRM helps with that process by providing a clear picture of where each contact is in the process. By reviewing previous sales attempts, you can determine what strategies work best, equipping your sales team for better closing rates in the future.

Close the right deals.

One of the challenges of sales is qualifying potential customers. The faster you can determine who is and who is not a likely to buy, the less time you have to waste pursuing dead ends. A CRM gives you a framework for making that call faster, ensuring that you close the right deals—for you and for your clients.

Know your market.

You can also use the data in your CRM to tease out trends and movements in your market. If customers are migrating from one kind of product or service to another, you’ll see it in the reports. If your business is seasonal, that’ll become clear, too.

Meet customers’ needs.

Cross-selling and upselling get a bad rap. Neither is inherently bad. It’s all about knowing what actually helps your customer base. The better your customer records, the more easily you can identify the products and add-ons that will help the most.

Manage customer communication.

When all communication is housed in one place, it’s much easier for your employees to deliver top-tier customer service. This is especially true in the moment, like when they have a customer on the phone. A CRM makes that extra insight possible across your team.

Personalize communication.

Automatic messaging can include order status updates, shipping notifications, and simple thank you messages. A CRM gives you the ability to automate each of these with some nice personal touches. That way your customers know what’s going on at all times.

Incorporate social media.

The most current CRM tools also incorporate options for social media contact. Given the marketing potential of social media, this is a must-have for small business owners. And a CRM makes utilizing social media—for everything from announcements to events to contests to customer stories—so much easier.

Let CCS Technology Guide You to the Perfect CRM

With all the CRM solutions out there, how do you find the one that’s best for your business? And once you’ve found it, how do you transition your current process over to the new CRM?

The easiest way also happens to be the smartest way—get some help from the experts.

The pros at CCS can take you through the whole process, ensuring you end up with the best possible CRM solution for your business needs. If you’re ready to unleash the power of a CRM, give us a call. We’re ready to help.